Meg went off to explore the camp (read: see the unicorns again), which left me by myself in the café’s upstairs room. I lay in my cot, enjoying the quiet, staring at Meg’s newly planted irises, which were now in full bloom in the window box. Still, I couldn’t sleep.
My stomach wound throbbed. My head buzzed.
I thought of Hazel Levesque and how she’d credited Frank with washing away her curse. Everyone deserved someone who could wash away their curses by making them feel loved. But that was not my fate. Even my greatest romances had caused more curses than they lifted.
Daphne. Hyacinthus.
And later, yes, the Cumaean Sibyl.
I remembered the day we had sat together on a beach, the Mediterranean stretching out before us like a sheet of blue glass. Behind us, on the hillside where the Sibyl had her cave, olive trees baked and cicadas droned in the summer heat of Southern Italy. In the distance, Mount Vesuvius rose, hazy and purple.
Conjuring an image of the Sibyl herself was more difficult—not the hunched and grizzled old woman from Tarquin’s throne room, but the beautiful young woman she’d been on that beach, centuries before, when Cumae was still a Greek colony.
I had loved everything about her—the way her hair caught the sunlight, the mischievous gleam in her eyes, the easy way she smiled. She didn’t seem to care that I was a god, despite having given up everything to be my Oracle: her family, her future, even her name. Once pledged to me, she was known simply as the Sibyl, the voice of Apollo.
But that wasn’t enough for me. I was smitten. I convinced myself it was love—the one true romance that would wash away all my past missteps. I wanted the Sibyl to be my partner throughout eternity. As the afternoon went on, I coaxed and pleaded.
“You could be so much more than my priestess,” I urged her. “Marry me!”
She laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am! Ask for anything in return, and it’s yours.”
She twisted a strand of her auburn locks. “All I’ve ever wanted is to be the Sibyl, to guide the people of this land to a better future. You’ve already given me that. So, ha-ha. The joke’s on you.”
“But—but you’ve only got one lifetime!” I said. “If you were immortal, you could guide humans to a better future forever, at my side!”
She looked at me askance. “Apollo, please. You’d be tired of me by the end of the week.”
“Never!”
“So, you’re saying”—she scooped up two heaping handfuls of sand—“if I wished for as many years of life as there are grains of this sand, you would grant me that.”
“It is done!” I pronounced. Instantly, I felt a portion of my own power flowing into her life force. “And now, my love—”
“Whoa, whoa!” She scattered the sand, clambering to her feet and backing away as if I were suddenly radioactive. “That was a hypothetical, lover boy! I didn’t agree—”
“What’s done is done!” I rose. “A wish cannot be taken back. Now you must honor your side of the bargain.”
Her eyes danced with panic. “I—I can’t. I won’t!”
I laughed, thinking she was merely nervous. I spread my arms. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Of course I’m afraid!” She backed away farther. “Nothing good ever happens to your lovers! I just wanted to be your Sibyl, and now you’ve made things weird!”
My smile crumbled. I felt my ardor cooling, turning stormy. “Don’t anger me, Sibyl. I am offering you the universe. I’ve given you near-immortal life. You cannot refuse payment.”
“Payment?” She balled her hands into fists. “You dare think of me as a transaction?”
I frowned. This afternoon really wasn’t going the way I’d planned. “I didn’t mean—Obviously, I wasn’t—”
“Well, Lord Apollo,” she growled, “if this is a transaction, then I defer payment until your side of the bargain is complete. You said it yourself: near-immortal life. I’ll live until the grains of sand run out, yes? Come back to me at the end of that time. Then, if you still want me, I’m yours.”
I dropped my arms. Suddenly, all the things I’d loved about the Sibyl became things I hated: her headstrong attitude, her lack of awe, her infuriating, unattainable beauty. Especially her beauty.
“Very well.” My voice turned colder than any sun god’s should be. “You want to argue over the fine print of our contract? I promised you life, not youth. You can have your centuries of existence. You will remain my Sibyl. I cannot take those things